Building Strong Foundations

What I learned working at one of the world’s most expensive resorts.

Qualia Spa, Hamilton Island

In short: the standards instilled early in a career, personal presentation, guest care, a culture of self-respect, become the foundation everything else gets built on, in business as much as in life.

What Foundation Actually Means

The word foundation has more than a few different uses. The load-bearing structure a building is built on.

The base make-up product the rest of your routine gets layered over. The principle or idea an argument or theory is built on.

The meaning doesn’t really matter though, it’s the underlying principle that counts. You need strong, quality foundations as the base if you want to build something strong and quality on top.

From a Country Pub to Qualia

The foundations of my own career have been interesting and varied, and there’s definitely been a lot of brain rewiring and changes in ritual needed to break some bad habits I picked up along the way. Fortunately, there have also been a few standout examples of foundations I was laying without even realising it, ones that ended up creating an enormous amount of room for growth.

When I was 20, I moved away from my relatively small-town life as a bit of a rough country boy and somehow landed myself a job on Hamilton Island, at one of the world’s most luxurious resorts, Qualia.

It was a massive culture shock, going from serving regulars at the local pub in a town of under 500 people, to pouring champagne and hosting billionaires and celebrities in rooms that could go for up to $10,000 a night.

Interestingly, as I’m writing this it’s occurred to me that we were taught the word Qualia loosely translates to “a collection of deeper sensory experiences”, which sounds a lot like the concept of alchemy I bang on about all the time. So there’s a weird little universe moment buried in this whole foundations idea.

The Standards That Stuck

During our training we learned some great lessons, body language, minimum service standards, upselling, correct guest language (sir and ma’am, not guys and girls, this was obviously back when you didn’t get cancelled for labelling gender), and plenty of other useful little things I carried through to the end of my hospitality career.

For me, the real punch in the face was the personal presentation standards. If we hadn’t shaved or ironed our shirts, we’d be sent home to fix it, then return to work with our tail between our legs, ready to grovel to whichever manager had called us out.

It took a couple of trips home before the lesson landed, and it was only when our Guest Services Manager told me, “You need to treat every interaction like it’s with a future prospective employer,” that it sank in.

We were encouraged to take pride in ourselves and our workplace, and it bred an incredible culture of self-respect throughout the team.

The Say Yes Policy

We also had a “say yes” policy, if a guest asked for something, you said yes. Sometimes that meant helicoptering in a specific bottle of wine, or searching the entire island for a product someone needed.

I don’t fully agree with it as a principle for every business, but the takeaway holds: if you can meet someone’s needs without burning too much time or money, or compromising your integrity, you should always do it.

Why Foundations Matter for Any Business

I’ve carried those standards into every workplace since, instilled so early in my career that they just became second nature.

It’s interesting, once you start ironing your own shirt, you really start noticing the people who don’t.

And it’s relevant to any business model. If you build your foundations strong, the rest tends to fall into place.

Employee culture, brand guidelines, a good logo and website, a clear target audience, an ethos or company philosophy, all of these need to be built strong from the start, or the rest of your business may as well be a house of cards.